


Who is in Control

by ab2fsycho



Series: Revolve [23]
Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: Anxiety, HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOFIE, I'm sorry it took so long, M/M, bludgeoning, hello again guys, someone loses their temper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 17:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6160729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ab2fsycho/pseuds/ab2fsycho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How much can one man lose before he snaps?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who is in Control

Descole’s hand locked onto Layton’s wrist mere seconds before the other was just beyond his reach. The professor’s body slammed into the side of the machine and both nearly fell. Descole lost his own footing, managing to hold onto the side of the machine and Layton’s body even as it threatened to slip from his grasp. His weight stretched Descole’s muscles, old wounds screaming at the strain this was putting on him, and he fought to hold them both up. Teeth gritting and a whine spilling, he wasn’t sure he could manage.

“Flora, take the wheel!” Raymond cried before coming over to help pull the two men up. They were both barely inside when Flora drove the machine through the wall of Targent’s hideout. Wrapping his arms around Layton’s chest, he ducked his head down into Layton’s shoulder and the machine door came off as they burst through the wall. Rubble and dust poured into the small cockpit.

The machine didn’t stop until it was fully outside of the building, and they could hear the sound of crumbling foundations over the cranking of the engine. There was a series of coughs, as they inhaled the remnants of dirt and debris. Everyone fanned and covered their eyes and mouths in an attempt to block the onslaught.

Everyone save for Descole.

Everyone save for Layton.

Layton remained . . . unresponsive.

The building had crumbled. The dust was settling. The engine was cut off. There were sirens in the distance, police and emergency units closing in on the structure that had buried all but the team of vigilante rescuers underneath.

But Layton’s eyes were closed and he wasn’t breathing.

Members of the combined organizations of Targent and the Family had yet to emerge from the rubble. Don Paolo and Flora had already absconded, fleeing the scene to play as though they had never been there in the first place. The ambulance was coming and there was little more they could do.

He still wasn’t breathing. He couldn’t tell. Was he really not breathing?

Raymond had moved them to the ground. Layton was laid across Descole’s lap. There had been blood. There had been enough blood that the gray suit was now stained with it. Descole’s hands were stained with it. Raymond had staunched the bleeding, but there was still . . . .

So much.

How could there be so much?

“Master.”

Was he really gone? “I . . . .”

“Master.”

He looked . . . wrong. “He . . . .”

“Master, please.”

He was missing something. He needed . . . something was missing. “His hat . . . .”

“Desmond!”

“He needs his hat.”

Raymond was shaking him. He was vaguely aware of Raymond gripping his shoulders and shaking him. He jerked away. He was still holding Layton. He couldn’t let . . . he couldn’t let him go.

“Desmond, you need to leave.”

“Where’s his hat?”

“My boy,” Raymond cupped Des’s face, turning his masked gaze from Layton. It took more force than Raymond Reddington typically needed to use with his employer, but he succeeded. When Des looked at his faithful companion . . . he felt completely and utterly lost. “You have to go. You cannot be caught here.”

“Raymond—”

“I will ensure he is cared for.”

“I can’t l—”

“I am not giving you a choice, son.”

There were gaps in Des’s memory. Wide gaps of darkness and heavy fog. He didn’t recall obeying. If he did, it was his body acting without his mind’s consent. His legs did hurt from running so far and long. His arms and hands were sore from the myriad acrobatic gestures he might have had to perform in order to escape via rooftop. He only vaguely recalled escaping that way because he clearly remembered a leap across an alleyway.

That was all he seemed to remember.

He wished he had forgotten all of the journey back to Layton’s home. His home. He had come to see it as his home as well. There was no real glory in recalling what it felt like, to peel blood soaked clothes from his body and burn them. And Des did in fact burn them. He burned almost every piece of that outfit. All but the mask, hat, and boa. Those he stowed in the same place they had been hiding until now.

It was only a matter of time before he was sought out. People would want the residents of the Layton household to know his body had been found. No . . . Layton had been found. Not his body. He was not a corpse.

But . . . he hadn’t. Been. Breathing.

Why hadn’t he been breathing?

Des’s hands were shaking as he washed off the remainder of the blood on his skin and got dressed. Casual dress. Dress like he was reclining at home. Dress like everything was normal.

Nothing was ever normal.

Everything was wrong.

He was at least clothed when he collapsed on the floor, leaning on the coffee table as the heavy breathing started. Heavy breathing and gut-wrenching, dry sobs that coupled with almost inhuman wails. Des didn’t sound like himself at all. He didn’t sound like himself, and it felt like he was standing outside of his own body watching himself break on the floor of a dead man’s house. “He’s not dead,” he argued with himself. He wasn’t. He couldn’t be. There was no way. “He’s not dead!” he shouted. His vision went red and his throat closed. He wanted to scream. He wanted to throw things. He wanted to rage until the truth wasn’t the truth, until it had been proven a lie in his mind. He wanted to flip furniture, break walls, do all the things he could, all the things his alter ego was known for.

He wanted to lose control.

Just one more time.

That was all he needed.

One.

More.

Time.

Minutes ticked and hours chimed. The fog had yet to clear and the redness of his vision was ungodly. He was still in the same spot, throat sore and mouth dry. Dry as the heaves he had been unleashing intermittently. He tried to tell himself he needed to straighten up. He needed to seat himself properly, pretend he knew nothing. Pretend he knew absolutely nothing except that Flora Reinhold was with a friend and that he had visited Clive and Bronev in a vain attempt to meet with her often spoken of companion and make things right with a former adversary. He had to decide whether or not he had succeeded in those attempts. Surely they kept record of visitors and their actions, so he needed to be prepared for those questions. He needed to be prepared for many things he was most certainly not prepared for now.

What happened next Des had no idea how to describe it. A temptation. A divine intervention. A random happenstance. A coincidence.

He had not believed in coincidences in many, many years. He did not think the world capable of random happenstances. Divine intervention seemed highly unlikely, as there was no divinity out there who smiled upon him. He felt it most likely he was being tempted.

And oh . . . he had given in.

It was good he was on the floor, and that he had not turned on the lights. It looked like he was not there at all. Like he was asleep. He stayed down as he heard the telltale squeak of the door swinging open slowly, of boots touching the floor in careful strides so as not to awaken someone. That would require someone actually being asleep, Des thought.

Des moved only slightly, and it was to lower himself further between couch and table. He gazed up over the furniture, eyes adjusted to the dark and still. Very. Much. Red.

And these men were carrying bats and clubs with the intent to bludgeon. To harm. To possibly kill or brain damage.

As they had done to Layton, Des presumed.

His vision was getting redder.

And redder.

And they should. Have brought. Guns.

“Spread out,” one uttered. The other came around the other side of the coffee table, fortunately going right past him. “You take the girl.”

All. Hell. Flew. Into Des.

And as he shot up and reached across the table, he made sure the one man flew into the other. Both hit the wall hard and a pain shot up Des’s side and back. He heard a desk give and break under the weight of the two men, heard their weapons of choice drop and roll across the floor. For a moment, he wished his sword were by his side. He settled for picking up the bats, however.

And doing to them what they had intended to do to him and Flora.

He had struck the man intending to come after him in the head, knocking him out instantly. The man who was intending to go after Flora he struck repeatedly in the body before going anywhere near his head. No, he wanted him to feel what she was going to feel. He wanted him to know what he was about to do. To a girl. To a child. His old wound ached, but he didn’t quit. He hammered down on the man, breaking a sweat as he did so. He didn’t need to see the outfits to know who they were. He didn’t need to see the order they had likely been given to know from who it had come. He didn’t even look at their faces. They could be faceless for all he bloody well cared. He just needed to get his point across.

He needed someone to feel as much pain as he felt now. As much as he was supposed to feel.

Descole peered through the veil of red at the bruised and bloodied man below him and . . . for an instant . . . he smiled. Then . . . he laughed. “I bet it was easier to beat him.” The professor, wonderful man though he was, was not a violent man and never would be. He simply did not have it in him. He was a defender, not a perpetrator. “I bet you even found it fun.” It didn’t matter he wasn’t talking to the men who actually had harmed Layton personally years and years before. In fact it was highly unlikely these were the same men. But that did not matter. For the time being, Descole needed them to know their errors. He struck the man in the chest hard and relished in the cry he elicited. “I bet you wish it were him now.” And not me, Descole thought as he started to raise the bat. “He might have shown you mercy.” He bared his teeth, club poised above his head, vision so red it was incredible he could see the pitiful soul below him. “But I am not him.”

He heard the crack in the man’s skull. Or he thought he heard it as wood met head. It wasn’t entirely unlikely that he had killed the man like that. 

Descole came back down from his haze abruptly. He didn’t collapse this time, for which he was thankful. He had a very important phone call to make.

And he had better make it while his hands were steady enough to dial the numbers, and his voice high enough to feign Desmond’s and not Descole’s.

(:)

Grosky was having an incredibly busy night. An old factory location had crumbled, allegedly because someone had driven through a crucial wall and the foundations had simply collapsed on everyone within. Professor Layton had been found among the wreckage, a cat dancing agitated around his body like they were not doing their very best to care for the man who had helped Grosky on more than one occasion. Not that Grosky had needed the help, he was a tough and clever man after all. Flora, once found with her friend ‘Paul,’ had been reasonably devastated.

To top it all off, the department received a call from the professor’s home. A man, Desmond Sycamore, had been attacked there. The name rang a bell with Grosky. A very big bell. He wanted to check the situation out personally.

When he did, he found a shaken man who didn’t look the least bit capable of defending himself in a manner that had left one man with a damn near deadly concussion and the other unmoving. He looked fragile and distraught. And yet, as soon as Grosky had approached, he had been able to have a reasonable conversation with him. Sycamore explained he had been staying with the professor for a time as a ‘vacation’ of sorts, and that he was concerned when the professor had not come home. He’d sent Flora to stay with someone she knew better, and had been resting peacefully at home when the home had been invaded.

Partway through the discussion, he pulled a bloody letter from his pocket and held it out to Grosky. “If you would, pass this on to Chelmey.” Grosky started to ask how Sycamore knew his brother-in-law, only to be stunned into silence when the man declared, “This should be evidence enough to convict the primary suspect in the attack.” Sycamore’s eye twitched, then he added, “Among others.”

Grosky’s eyes narrowed on the man. He swore he’d seen him before, but he had no idea where. And this . . . just what was this. “Just where did you get this, sir?”

“Off the men who attacked me.”

Grosky was appalled. “You rifled through evidence?” Much as bodies were evidence in this case.

Sycamore nodded, unfazed and proceeding with his explanation without acknowledging the question. “It’s a written order to subdue anyone who might prove ‘an issue.’ What that issue is, I will leave up to Chelmey.” Grosky could see a twist in his features showing that he wanted to sneer, but Sycamore refrained. “The handwriting matches that of an outstanding public official.” There was an utterance of sloppiness after years of corruption, one Grosky was certain he was not meant to hear from the other. But he had.

And his hairs continued to raise. “Why must I pass this onto Chelmey?” He could very well investigate this himself.

“I owe him a debt,” was Sycamore’s only response. “Now what do you know of Layton.”

Grosky saw it then. He saw the concern, and he told him the professor was in the hospital with serious injuries. No word yet on his condition. Sycamore requested he be transported there to be with Flora, whom he presumed they had already informed. As he was going, Grosky asked, “Sir, will you be remaining there for a time?”

To which he smoothly responded (in spite of his shakiness), “You may call me professor, and I will be wherever the Professor Layton is.”

The dismissal in his tone set Grosky off, and the intensity with which he recognized such a language had him calling over one of the other officers to contact Mrs. Grosky. He was pleased that Professor Sycamore’s whereabouts were well known, as he wanted a second opinion on whether or not this was indeed the man he was thinking of.

His wife would most assuredly know.

**Author's Note:**

> I want to apologize for taking so long to write this. I want to apologize for taking so long to finish. But I can assure you this is a story I have not given up on.
> 
> I hope you enjoy the update.


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